INF4 - Phase 1 Infrastructure

Paul Basham Associates provide ongoing Civil Engineering and Transport Planning support to Welborne Land Ltd for Welborne Garden Village - a new generation sustainable garden village in Hampshire; a community for 15,000 people to live, work and play, consisting of connected and energy efficient homes, integrated with extensive publicly accessible green space.

As part of Phase 1 of Welborne Garden Village, new infrastructure is required including roads, drainage and utilities. The first stage of this is to provide a network of haul roads throughout Phase 1 which will later become the highways, and to lay the strategic drainage infrastructure to serve the entirety of Phase 1 - 500 homes, a School and the Village Centre.

Paul Basham Associates’ commission was to provide the Civil Engineering and Transport Planning support for the Reserved Matters application and Civil engineering Design work for the tender and construction stages of the haul road network and Infrastructure Drainage.

We produced a highway network within Phase 1 to suit the existing Welborne masterplan. Our highway design was carried out in accordance with the Welborne Streets Manual – a document produced by the wider Welborne design team to ensure consistency and vision across the development. We also developed the drainage strategy based on anticipated infiltration rates and ground conditions; our approach was to provide 3 separate strategic basins/networks that takes flow from the entirety of Phase 1.

We then collated a Reserved Matters application, which included the highways and drainage elements mentioned above as well as earthworks, a Construction Traffic Management Plan, junction modelling, pavement design, and various other details. Once approved, we then progressed onto the detailed design and the Tender & Construction phases. We also assisted with the commissioning of on-site ground investigation packages.

After these on-site ground investigations found infiltration rates to be lower than anticipated, we had to change our approach. We maintained a strong sustainable drainage philosophy on the project, so we pivoted to large infiltration basins with additional infiltration structures such as crate soakaways and infiltration trenches to support them.

We also worked with our Client team to design inlets and outlets from the attenuation basins that would be in keeping with the landscape and design aesthetic. Inlet headwalls were designed as low-profile brick walls, with a concrete funnel hidden beneath the basin slope, rather than fully visible concrete or brick structures requiring fall protection fencing and outlet gratings.

Throughout the on-site works we have attended weekly progress meetings with the groundwork contractor Blanchard Wells, to review progress and answer site queries. Now that the designs are finalised and the haul road infrastructure network is well underway, we look forward to the Section 38. Throughout the design process we have been in communication with the adopting authorities to ensure that our designs pass through the sectional agreements as smoothly as possible, particularly with HCC to ensure that the pavement design and ground testing regimes are fully compliant with their standards.

We achieved reserved matters approval at the end of 2022 and since early 2023 the construction of this infrastructure works has been underway on site.  We are set to submit a S38 for the final road layout towards the end of 2023.